


If Only

by loonagarbage



Series: The Loona Lesbiverse [2]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 23:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19840459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonagarbage/pseuds/loonagarbage
Summary: Vivi is a scared, timid girl, recently transferred to a Korean university from China. Totally out of her element, she finds solace and comfort in her friend Haseul. Is something deeper there? Will anything come of it, or will feelings be left unspoken?





	If Only

**Author's Note:**

> ~comments are greatly appreciated~

****__

Moving to Korea was terrifying.

It was something I’d always wanted to do, but just because you want something and are excited about it doesn’t make it any less scary. I’d been learning the language at home as best as I could in my free time, taking classes and studying for most of the day, but that can only help you so much. Once you’re thrust straight into the culture without your parents, without your friends and without a full understanding of the language, it’s as if you’re stranded. A lot of the times it felt like I was drowning.

My roommate was nice enough. She tried to speak slower than she normally would have, just to make sure I understood, but I would still miss a few words. It made me feel inadequate and stupid. She was almost never around, having amassed a pretty big group of friends right off the bat. Whenever she left and I was by myself, I’d cry more often than not. The transition was overwhelming and I felt totally alone. I had a hard time making friends because I didn’t have the confidence to ever go up and speak to strangers for fear of not understanding them or them not understanding me.

Thankfully when Korean was written I understood it without much trouble, so my classes weren’t as much of a problem. I had to work what seemed like twice as hard during lectures though, because professors wouldn’t slow down for you when they went on a tangent. A lot of my notes were patchworked together just from peeking sheepishly at the other students at my sides to see what they’d written.

My first year at the university was a trainwreck socially, and an upward battle academically. My parents were concerned when I returned for the summer and detailed to them my uncertainties about it, but kept encouraging me to attend: the programs were better. I’d always wanted to travel. It’s a learning experience.

They were right. I knew I should stay. I went into the second year with high hopes, a light heart, and a single room right next to the science building.

Despite my high hopes and desire for improvement, I quickly fell into a similar routine. I’d walk to class, do my work, eat alone, talk to no one. As the days wore by, I felt more and more empty. I’d see so many of the other students flourishing, blossoming and having the time of their lives with their newfound freedom and friendships, while I couldn’t have felt more restricted.

It was a month or so into school that I made my first real friend.

It was such a minor interaction, one that a normal person never would have so much as batted an eye at, but it meant the world to me and put a genuine smile on my face for the first time since my plane touched down in Korea.

The class I was in had to split up into pairs to proofread the drafts of our papers before we turned them in the next day. This was a pretty common occurrence. More often than not, I simply stuck to my seat and waited for the unlucky soul saddled with me as a partner because everyone else was preoccupied. Sometimes a group of three would form and I’d be left entirely alone, but would be too shy to speak up.

Not this time.

A blond - a tall, pretty, smiling blond, asked to work with me. I’d noticed her earlier, she’d come into class late. I fumbled with my words, startled already at how pleasant she was being. She pulled up a chair and I repeated my usual phrase: “Keep in mind Korean is not my first language.” I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d told people that as a disclaimer before conversation started. Despite the repetition I never got used to it, and always felt like such a bother.

She didn’t react that way, though. Some people did. They would flinch, or speak in a deliberately slow, almost insulting way - as if I’d never heard Korean in my life. I understood the intent wasn’t necessarily malicious, but it simply made me feel like more of an inconvenience than I already did.

Instead, she smiled, and asked me where I was from. I told her. Her face lit up and she told me she wanted to visit China someday too. My chest that had always seemed so inexplicably tight loosened, and it felt like I could actually get a breath in.

We wordlessly made comments on each other’s papers but I was distracted the entire time. This girl seemed nice. She told me her name was Jinsol, and when she handed me back my paper she’d put a little smiley face at the bottom of it. I hadn’t made a single friend my first year because I had barely exchanged more than a few words with anyone. This was my chance. I knew it was. But I was so dreadfully nervous.

She got up and went to her seat when the professor said time was up and continued his lecture. I watched her go, my hands clenching into fists further with every step she took away. I’d missed my chance. The one potential person it seemed like I could actually talk to had just given me the perfect opportunity to reach out, and my own trepidation had ruined it for me. I didn’t process a single word of the rest of the lecture, too preoccupied with beating myself up over how socially inept I was in this new country.

But then she stopped me as we were leaving the room.

I actually jumped slightly from my surprise. Why was she talking to me? What was this about? Maybe she had a follow up question on a comment I’d left on her paper. That must have been it.

It wasn’t. She wanted to get together sometime in the future for study help, since she was struggling in the class and I seemed to better understand the material. I couldn’t help but smile again. I’d gotten a second chance.

Not letting myself squander it this time, I gave her my number and told her where my dorm was. I walked back to my room happier than I’d felt in months. It was miniscule, and it may not even amount to anything substantial, but it was something. I’d spoken to someone.

Jinsol texted me a mere few days later to follow up on her plans for studying, and we met in the library. Even though the conversation was mainly centered on the subject material, it was nice just to talk to someone who treated me so well. I’d never felt more comfortable around a person who was almost a total stranger. Occasionally she’d stray and ask me about my day, or what other classes I was taking. The questions never failed to catch me off guard, but in a good way. I’d always fumble trying to answer.

We started to meet up twice a week for study sessions. She made sure to tell me every time that I was such a big help, and that I was better at teaching than the professor was. Sometimes we would study in my room, sometimes hers, and with each session she’d share more details about herself. They were minor but I cherished them because it made me feel like we were friends. I don’t know if she’d consider us as that - if I was being harshly realistic she probably viewed us as close acquaintances, but that was enough for me.

One day will always stand out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it, and for the longest time I was so unsure as to why that was.

Jinsol asked for us to meet up outside somewhere on campus, because it was a nice day, which was true. I agreed, and we set up our books and notes on a small patch of grass adjacent to the central quad. Students passed by us in a semi-regular stream as we chatted and worked hard to cram for an upcoming test, most of them not giving us so much as a glance. But there was one who spotted Jinsol and came over.

Her features were regal and enchanting. Her voice was soft and effortlessly cascaded in a way that made my heart flutter. Her eyes were warm and the way she looked at me made me feel important, significant and memorable.

I won’t forget her outfit either. She wore a plaid skirt and a faded green blouse, the color accenting the flecks of green present in her irises. She also wore a necklace with a small, gold pendant of some sort of bird.

Jinsol greeted her enthusiastically and introduced us.

Her name was Haseul. She extended her hand to me which I timidly shook, my grip weak while hers was gentle yet firm. Her smile was slight - just a barely noticeable upturn of the corners of her lips - though even that, the simplest of expressions, drew me in and made me cling to her every word.

I told her where I was from, as I told Jinsol. I gave her the disclaimer about my language, and she told me that she never would have guessed. As soon as I dared to express even the slightest bit of uncertainty toward the most minute aspect of Korean culture, Haseul startled me by jumping at the chance to help. It was almost as if it were her intrinsic instinct. Jinsol at this point simply let the two of us talk as she read through the relevant chapters in our textbook by herself. Normally I would have helped, but Haseul’s presence demanded all of my attention.

She told me about the city. She’d grown up there, so she knew all of the “ins and outs.” She asked me if I had been to this store, or this restaurant, or this park. In truth, I’d barely left the campus. She was appalled and demanded that we go to all of the aforementioned spots, with her as my built in tour guide. I readily agreed.

The following months, we were inextricably entangled. I rarely left her side, and she didn’t seem to have a single problem with it. We ate meals together, she took me all over the city in her own car, showed me things like notable monuments, streets she found particularly aesthetic, parks that had colorful trees and restaurants with nice waitstaff.

At first, the time we spent together felt slightly stilted as she took on the role of tour guide with rather official connotations. It almost seemed as if she’d pre-prepared the speeches she delivered whenever we’d reach our designated destinations, like she’d memorized them from flash cards. It was endearing and fascinating, but in all honesty I was much more intrigued by her than I was with any of the places we went to together.

Eventually things became more personal. She would knock on my door later in the night and we would go on drives throughout the city and in the suburbs surrounding it. Sometimes I would doze off because of the late hour, and whenever I came to, she would be pulled over on the side of the road playing absentmindedly with my hair. She would drive through her old neighborhood and point out different landmarks, telling me the anecdotes attached to them. Those were the things I truly remembered - none of the fun facts or historical backgrounds to city monuments or facets of Korean culture. She was tremendously more interesting than any of those factoids could ever hope to be.

She would invite me to her house to dinner, a place I felt more welcome and accepted than anywhere in the whole country. Her parents took a liking to me instantly, finding me intriguing and wanting to hear stories about my own home and my own customs instead of trying to impose theirs upon me. Her younger sister, Yeojin, although ridiculously lively and loud, would always greet me with a tight hug and a rambling nonsensical story about nothing in particular, and it truly felt as if I was as welcome there as a member of the family.

Haseul was unlike any person I had ever met. She was so immensely selfless and caring. She held all of her friends in the highest possible regard and was thinking about them every second of every day. The amount of times she bought me small trinkets she found while she was running errands, brought me food or drinks to my room when she knew I was stressed from school, or leapt at the chance to drive me anywhere I needed to go was nearly unreal. Her priority in life was not her schoolwork, not her part-time job, and not even herself, but those around her. She would do practically anything for them and would never request even the slightest gesture in return, and I have never witnessed anything so pure and kind before in my entire life.

Needless to say, I found myself infatuated. Haseul was indescribable, an enthralling enigma to me in every way possible. How could someone genuinely be such a kindhearted person? Initially a part of me had suspected some underlying ulterior motive because her unfiltered benevolence was so surreal, but I quickly discovered that was an unfair assumption. It was all real, all unfiltered, all simply raw emotion and desire to help those around her. Her presence lit up a room, her laugh made my cheeks hurt from how wide I would smile, her eyes sparkled with happiness and life, and the way she cared for all of those around her made my heart swell.

It was the first time she hugged me that I truly felt something unfamiliar within me start to stir. It had been a long day for me at school - I’d received a startlingly bad grade on an important test and I had been kicking myself for my inability to comprehend the material when she’d showed up at my door, unannounced. This wasn’t unusual, but my current state was. Her natural intuition made her take notice, and without speaking a single word she wrapped me into a tight, sincere embrace that made my whole mind go numb.

I clung to her with a sudden desperation that emerged as if from nowhere. My body started to quake as a realization slammed into me like a brick wall, and her grip only constricted further as she felt my trembling. She mumbled soothing words into my ear, reassuring me without even knowing the cause of my distress, asking me what she could do to help before asking what was wrong. I found myself wholly unable to respond, consumed by what I had abruptly discovered and from the new sensations enveloping my body.

I had feelings for her. Feelings that I’d never had in my life, but that I recognized instantaneously. There was no room left to wonder. No room for debate or consideration. I liked Haseul in the way that girls weren’t supposed to like girls. Or at least, that was what I’d understood, what I’d been told. My previous worries about my grades were flung entirely out the window, overpowered by an intense, unanticipated terror of what this affected. What did this mean about me? About my life, about my future? About my relationship with her? Did this change things? Only on my end, I supposed. Should I tell her? Or would that add needless complication? Would it ruin things? Ruin the friendship that I cherished most out of anything on this earth? I couldn’t risk it - didn’t even want to _consider_ risking it. I couldn’t lose her.

But it didn’t go away.

If anything, the feelings grew stronger as our bond did.

I sought help on online forums, desperately typing into the search bar: _have feelings for a girl. Advice?_ Responses ranged from confessing to repressing. Many advised to first discover the girl in question’s orientation, to better gauge your own chances. I would mull over the possibilities for hours of my own time, never quite working up the nerve to flat out ask.

Instead, I asked Yeojin, who tended to be oblivious to most things. She informed me that Haseul had boyfriends in the past but hadn’t dated for a while, since she was “too busy being boring.” I assumed that wasn’t the true reason, and accepted that I wouldn’t get any more of an answer from the young girl.

From all the information I could gather, Haseul was straight. She’d expressed nothing to me that would lead me to believe anything to the contrary, and although that was a rather bleak conclusion to draw, I was never one to be unrealistic.

My feelings continue to grow.

They expanded, became all-encompassing and unbelievably intense. The slightest touch or brush of skin would spawn innumerable butterflies that lingered at the top of my chest for hours on end. A glance that lingered for what may have seemed like too long would remain in the back of my mind for days: had that meant something? Was she trying to convey a hidden message to me? The most miniscule compliment was instantly overanalyzed in my hyperactive, Haseul-focused brain. Hugs were the worst and proved to be extremely conflicting for me. While I craved the contact, or rather any contact from Haseul, they left my heart beating at a concerningly fast pace while simultaneously leaving my chest hollow.

The feelings kept growing, but were unrequited.

They gnawed at me every second of every day. I could barely focus on anything, always thinking of her, of us. Of what we were, and what we weren’t. My grades slipped. My sleep suffered. She noticed and did her best to help, the usual concern for her friends showing through in all of our interactions. It only seemed to worsen things. The truth that only I knew simply sat within me, feeling ready to burst, though I knew it had to stay hidden.

Eventually, another chance emerged. A chance to tell, to relieve the burden of this secret I’d been keeping for months.

When I was with Jinsol one day, studying at a café near campus, she’d blurted something out that caught me entirely off guard: she was gay. Or rather, in her words, she was “ _so_ gay.” The confession had no prefacing and was simply sprung upon me. I was unsure of how to react.

We didn’t speak upon the topic in length. She fawned over a pretty barista, claiming she had helped her discover what I assumed to be a relatively new identity. I’d assumed it had been Sooyoung - Jinsol’s roommate, who was rather known around campus to be quite the prominent lesbian. I’d had a run-in or two with her whenever I went to Jinsol’s room for studying, and sometimes I could feel her looking me up and down. Jinsol made sure to explain that Sooyoung played no part in it and that their coinciding orientations were mere coincidence, but by that point I’d nearly entirely tuned out of the conversation.

The reason for my distraction was because I’d noticed a potential opportunity. Jinsol has just presumably confessed something major. It hadn’t at all seemed planned, more so like a cathartic eruption that needed to be said. All the while I’d listened to her rambling and saw how visibly relieved she was, I thought of my own predicament and my own mounting urges to reveal my own identity to someone, _anyone_. I trusted Jinsol. Although our interactions were solely restricted to academic reinforcement, she’d changed that by coming out to me and even daring to ask me if I had a significant other back in China, seemingly out of the blue.

I didn’t let this chance slip through my fingers.

My confession was clumsily spoken as I shielded half of my face with my hands, cheeks turning a deep pink and my toes curling within my sneakers from the sheer anticipation of actually saying this aloud - something I had never done.

“I think I like boys _and_ girls.”

My words trembled, as did my whole body. The relief I got from that simple statement was so intense. I felt myself deflate, relaxing from a permanent state of hyper-tension I had grown so accustomed to it seemed natural.

Her response was a broad smile and kind words of unconditional acceptance. We continued the study session, though I only did so half-heartedly, the whole while suppressing a grin of enthusiasm and relief.

I hugged her for the first time before we parted ways, feeling that it was more than warranted.

The next time I saw Haseul, I felt different, as if she somehow knew of my identity now. Deep down I was aware that was ridiculous, Jinsol never would’ve told. I trusted her. Though now that it was out in the open even in the slightest, I felt vulnerable and exposed, as if people could somehow see it now. They could see my new identity. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but it worried me sometimes.

I wondered constantly if I should tell Haseul. She was my best friend, I cared about her more than anything. She was still very close with Jinsol, who was gay, but did she know about that? Had Jinsol told? She was perfectly civil and polite to Sooyoung, who was out and proud. I highly doubted she would have any problem with it, but would it affect our relationship? Our closeness? Would she be more scarce with her touches, more careful with her compliments? That was the absolute last thing I wanted.

Part of the reason I even thought to tell Haseul in the first place was based on the slim, the very very, unbelievably slim possibility that she would confess some sort of attraction to girls as well. It was a silly hope that I actively knew was ridiculous to have, but the chance of that happening was there and my brain wouldn’t let me forget it even for a second.

I was over her house late one night on a weekend, sitting in her room while we watched some mindless TV show. My head had rested on her shoulder, and her soft fingers were gently tracing along my hand. The sun had long since set. I was barely even watching the screen at this point, too enveloped by Haseul’s presence and our closeness to process the information there.

I was getting that same urge that I felt when I’d been sitting with Jinsol: the urge to confess the truth, the urge to put it out in the open. For some reason I felt like I was lying to Haseul, which wasn’t true, I was simply keeping something from her. The intense desire to share this was growing stronger and stronger as time slowly dragged on and I was consciously fighting it back, too scared that something would go wrong.

Her intuition made her notice my gradually thinning breaths and how tense my body was becoming. Concerned, she stopped the motion of her fingers and asked me gently, “Are you feeling okay?”

No. No I wasn’t. My lack of a proper response seemed to convey that enough for her, and she moved fully away so she could better face me. Her brow was knitted in that Haseul way I’d gotten so used to.

Her hands reached and gently clasped both of mine, which only seemed to make me tremble harder, “What’s the matter?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I couldn’t lie to Haseul, I’d never been able to because I never used to have anything to lie about. I didn’t like thinking that I had anything that could even slightly resemble a secret that I was keeping from her, but it was true. I was hiding something huge, something that could change things between us, but it was for her own good. God, I was just so terrified of ruining everything.

But she wasn’t going to let this go. She could tell something was wrong, and unless I went against my conscience and hid the truth, she wouldn’t drop the topic. I couldn’t tell her. There was no way. Maybe I could just share part of it...?

My voice trembled pitifully as I tried to force it out. It wasn’t as fluid as when I was with Jinsol. This time it felt like the stakes were infinitely higher. My heart was in my throat as I pushed the words from me, tightening my grip on her hand without realizing.

“I’m...” I couldn’t look at her. My cheeks were turning pink and I hated that I was so bad at hiding when I was flustered, “...I think...” My chest started to hurt, becoming so tight it was as if I couldn’t breathe, “I like... boys... and girls.”

The air seemed like it got sucked straight out of the room. It shifted. Things shifted. I felt it, this tangible change to not just the atmosphere, but to everything. To us. My heart wrenched with regret as I frantically tugged my hands away, her grip having loosened at the confession. I got to my feet, panicking. My eyes were welling up with tears and I felt so _stupid_ for so many different reasons.

“Wait,” I heard her stand too but I didn’t look, _couldn’t_ look. Instead I made a beeline to the door, stammering out a flood of apologies and shoddy excuses for needing to leave. She grabbed my hand and I jumped from surprise at the contact, “Stop.” Her voice was gentle. Soft. Like normal. I didn’t even register it, feeling like I was about to break down crying any second from the self-hatred that suddenly started to consume me.

“I shouldn’t have, um, I didn’t mean--” Just as I reached to actually open her door, she tugged on my hand and spun me to face her, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me so close that my breath hitched.

“Shh.” One of her hands rubbed slow circles against my back. I didn’t know what to do. My composure was thinning more and more with every passing second and the last thing I wanted to do was cry. I already felt like enough of a fool.

“I-I...” My lip started to quiver and I shut my eyes, fighting back tears with every fiber of my being. It didn’t matter what she said or did next. I _knew_ I felt that shift. I knew there was a reason for her delayed reaction and delayed response. Some part of her was unsettled. Even if she wasn’t going to let it show through, it was there, and that was going to change things.

Something overcame me and suddenly clung to her _hard_ , bringing her closer, wondering if she could feel the desperation in the gesture. I was scared I’d never be able to do this again. I was scared she’d end our hugs faster, or that she’d shrug me off when my head rested on her shoulder. Would she not play with my hair anymore when we were walking? Would she not grab my hand when we crossed the street? Would she distance herself, slowly but surely, until we were just acquaintances? There was a sinking feeling in my stomach that made me almost feel sick.

She could feel how much I was shaking, it would have been impossible not to, “This doesn’t change things.” That was such a lie. I knew it was. I’d felt it, “You don’t have to worry.”

She didn’t understand what I was so worried about. She didn’t understand, and she never would, because I would never tell. Not the whole truth, only fragments. I’d say it with my eyes, with my gestures, but never with words.

Despite her reassurance and mild protesting, I made a more convincing excuse and left twenty or so minutes later. She didn’t hug me. That was unlike her. Things were already different.

For some reason I felt an intense compulsion to talk to Jinsol, to talk to _anyone._ Jinsol was the only other person on campus who I felt comfortable talking with. It was around 8 at that point. She would either be in the library or her room, and considering how emotionally unstable I still felt, I prayed it was the latter.

I’d never turned up unannounced before, and I spent what must have been ten straight minutes standing outside her door before mustering the courage to knock. By that point my eyes were glossy and red around the rims.

It wasn’t Jinsol who answered the door, but Sooyoung. I gasped slightly in surprise, for some reason not having considered the very plausible chance that her roommate would be there.

I apologized and nearly started to leave, but she spoke up in a slow, soothing voice that somehow managed to ease my nerves. She asked if I was looking for Jinsol, which I confirmed was the case. She wasn’t there and Sooyoung wasn’t sure where she’d gone. Just my luck. I thanked her, wiping slightly at the corner of my eye as I started to head off down the hall, but was stopped a second time by her gentle tone.

“Wait, hey, um,” She opened the door up further, “I was just gonna head out to town for a bit, would you want to come?” Her cadence was naturally nonchalant, as if she hadn’t a care in the world and was totally unfamiliar with the concept. I envied that so intensely.

My brow furrowed at the question. Was she serious? We barely knew each other. The most words we ever exchanged were in passing and I couldn’t properly recall a single one of them. Did she do this with everyone?

“Uh...” Although Jinsol wasn’t there, the urge to talk to someone, to vent and get all of this out in the open was just so intense. If I couldn’t find her, I may very well combust. But I didn’t know Sooyoung. Was she trustworthy to share these things with? They were some of my most precious secrets. I wasn’t sure what to do.

The longer I stared into her slightly expecting gaze and the wider her welcoming smile became, the less willpower I seemed to have against her.

So I agreed.

She helped me fix my makeup, since it had slightly smudged from the traces of tears. She didn’t ask what they were from or why I was upset, leaving the progression of this inevitable reveal totally to me. I appreciated it and found myself baffled by how patient and sincere she was. For some reason I hadn’t at all anticipated her to behave like this behind closed doors. Most of my knowledge on Sooyoung was based solely off the rumors I’d eavesdropped from other students: she was a bit of player, she never tended to commit, she was outgoing and charismatic and you shouldn’t mess with her. Not one piece of that seemed to fit with the girl who delicately dabbed beneath my eyes with a tissue and helped me pick a lipstick that “brought out my smile.”

By the time we officially left her room and the dorms, I already felt so much better. I had no idea how she’d done that. It was like some sort of miracle.

She brought me to a pastry shop and insisted on buying me something. I found myself mildly infatuated by the swagger she had when she walked, and I started to really understand how she got so many girls. Without even seeming aware of it she was almost overwhelmingly flirty. If I hadn’t been so out of it from what had happened earlier, I probably would have been a bit more flustered at a couple of her comments and slight winks. She was trying to get me to have fun, trying to cheer me up as best as she knew how. The effort was appreciated, but as the night wore on, the memory of the newly made weirdness between Haseul and I lingered even more in the back of my head.

Sooyoung brought me to some snazzy club, tried to get me to dance, and got me to have a drink. She had a few herself but didn’t so much as flinch, while I already felt a bit off-kilter from half a glass. She teased me, calling me a lightweight, which was true. I wouldn’t dance, but that didn’t stop her.

Eventually, at what must have been two or three AM, sleep tugged at my eyelids and dulled my sense of inhibitions. When Sooyoung came back to the small table I’d been sitting at, I blurted something out.

I told her I liked girls, and that I really liked _a_ girl in particular, but didn’t say the name. I hadn’t reached that point yet. Her previous expression of casual fun faded in an instant as she grew serious and empathetic. She explained that she’d been in my shoes many times before, and that it was never easy. I tried to talk about it more, keeping it as vague as I could for fear of her sleuthing out Haseul’s identity. Without giving details, I had less to say than I thought, but even just that - having someone I could talk to about all this confusion, uncertainty, stress and fear - it made the weight on my chest lessen. At one point she reached slowly across the table and rested her hand atop mine, which had been shaking. It steadied from her touch.

I knew I had to head back to my dorm, but she asked me briefly to come back to hers. It was a flippant question with no connotation behind it, so I agreed. She halfheartedly explained that she had to grab something and then would “walk me home.”

We got back to her room and Jinsol still wasn’t there, which I found odd. She must’ve been spending the night somewhere else. I yawned slightly, strolling casually around and looking at some of the things Sooyoung had on the wall next to her bed. They were mainly pictures of people I didn’t recognize, but I found myself intrigued at the chance to even catch a glimpse of what her life was like.

Any sleepiness that I’d had lingering about me was drained straight out when Sooyoung shut the door behind us, locking it. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow and that was when I saw how her expression had changed. Oh.

She stepped closer, not saying a word, but her eyes were dark and lidded. I felt rooted to the spot as she got closer and closer, not feeling even the slightest compulsion to move, ask her what she was doing, or try to leave. Her fingers moved to intertwine with mine and my next breath got caught in my throat.

She kissed me and it felt different from any of the boys I’d been with: it was softer and I could tell she knew what she was doing, but it felt a bit impersonal. I didn’t think about what was happening - I just didn’t let myself. She kept telling me over and over again in a gentle voice that we could stop whenever if I changed my mind, but I didn’t say a word.

Things... escalated, and it was nice. She had been slow and gentle, which wasn’t what I had expected. All of her touches were soft and she would always quietly ask before she tried anything different that she thought might startle me. She made me feel safe, welcome, and more than anything, accepted. There weren’t any real feelings there, at least not on my end, but the connection was comforting on its own.

She didn’t ask me to leave once we had finished and instead simply pulled her warm blankets up around us as we laid side by side. It was only then that I said it. It hadn’t been planned. It just slipped out.

“I’m in love with Haseul.”

It was followed by a choked out, painful sob that made my chest quake. Sooyoung turned on her side to better face me and gently reached out to clasp my hand. I absolutely lost it, becoming hysteric, just crying and crying and _crying_. “Please don’t say anything. You can’t say anything, please.” I pleaded, finding myself entering a state of absolute panic. She held me in her arms and told me everything was okay, that I “didn’t have to worry about a thing.”

I fell asleep at some point without meaning to. It felt like in the next instant, I was waking up still in Sooyoung’s slightly loosened grip. Although I found it startlingly comforting, memories of what had happened the night before came flooding back. My cheeks turned a deep red. Jinsol still wasn’t there, which was my only consolation - I didn’t want her to see me half-naked in her roommate’s bed. Moving as carefully as I could so as not to disturb the sleeping Sooyoung, I slipped out from under the covers and got to my feet. My shirt was laying on the floor and I quickly put it on, checking my face in the mirror. My eyes were puffy from how hard I’d been crying the night before.

My foot accidentally bumped into Sooyoung’s desk chair and it rolled along the floor, clattering noisily against her nightstand. I froze, wondering if she’d heard. Stirring came from the bed and I cursed under my breath.

She groggily sat up, asking me gently why I was leaving so soon.

I wasn’t sure what to say. It... wasn’t necessarily that I regretted what happened the night before, like I said I had a nice time, and Sooyoung was so much sweeter than I ever would have assumed her to be, it was just that... I’d been really distraught and wasn’t thinking. Part of me was worried that this was deeper on her end - that she really felt something for me, but that couldn’t be true.

I more or less just stood there, struck dumb, not looking at her and still facing the door. She stood up, repeating her question. I still said nothing. Her hand moved to clasp mine loosely, and the contact was familiar enough that I didn’t flinch.

I made an excuse - that I had a project to work on. She saw through me and suddenly seemed to understand every single one of my concerns as she started to refute them one by one.

  
“Hey, this doesn’t have to mean anything.” She told me firmly, and I felt my shoulders untense, “Unless you want it to. Which I’m guessing you don’t, considering...” She trailed off, seeming to suspect that if she repeated the secret I’d revealed last night, I’d be sent into another tear-filled panic attack. Which was a warranted suspicion.

I nodded, spending the next five straight minutes reassuring her - saying that I had fun, that she was really nice, that I wouldn’t mind spending time with her more in the future, but that someone else had my heart, even if she didn’t know it. Sooyoung understood and seemed unfazed, but made sure to tell me one last thing before I headed out into the hallway.

“Be careful. Most of the time this whole unrequited love thing does more harm than good.”

All I could think to say was a simple, “Trust me, I know.”

I brushed past some girl I didn’t recognize as I left the room, and felt her staring after me while I walked away down the hall. She’d been hovering outside the door. For a few fleeting seconds I wondered who she was, and if it was suspicious that I was leaving Sooyoung’s room looking so disheveled. My cheeks burned the entire way back to my dorm, as if anyone wandering campus could tell what I was just leaving from. I understood why they called this the “walk of shame,” though I wasn’t necessarily ashamed of what Sooyoung and I had done. Part of me could still barely believe it had happened.

I spent the day laying in bed, letting my mind wander and consume itself with my regrets, hatred, worries, and sadness. It had only been half a day, but already I missed Haseul so much it felt like there was a tangible hole in my chest. It was only then that I looked back on what I’d told Sooyoung the night before.

I’d said I was in love with Haseul. Was that true? Was it really love? In the heat of the moment I hadn’t even given the term a second thought when I’d said it, like I’d forgotten the weight the word really had. Now it started to set in.

I didn’t think I’d ever been “in love” before. I’d never felt those feelings people wrote about in poems or portrayed in dramas. But when I saw Haseul, or when she smiled at me, when she held my hand or hugged me or told me I looked nice, this... fluttery feeling would happen in my chest and made my heart swell. Without a doubt I cared _so_ deeply about her, she was so integral to my life. So maybe that feeling _was_ love. It felt as if I couldn’t live without her. I’d never come close to experiencing any sort of dependency like this. One time my mom had described love to me as when you felt like time would stop whenever they weren’t around. And that’s how I felt.

She reached out first, asking if we could spend the day together - what we usually did on weekends. I thought for a long time before responding, eventually coming to a nerve-wracking conclusion.

If things really were going to be different from now on between us, I could at least work to make them as similar as they used to be by pretending like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had changed. Maybe if I acted as if I’d never confessed my identity to her, she’d take the hint and do the same. Maybe it could be this unspoken agreement where we leave it undiscussed. As long as I got to spend time with Haseul, that was fine by me.

When we saw each other, she hugged me, and although the gesture felt ever so slightly more stiff I was grateful for it nonetheless. She didn’t bring it up. Neither did I. We talked about casual things. Was her chemistry professor still being difficult? What was I gonna do over summer break? How was Yeojin doing?

We walked around town for hours. She kept pointing at places we’d been before, reminiscing about stuff we’d done. She seemed to be lost in a confusing nostalgia for things that had happened only a few months before. It scared me. Why was she talking about these things like they’d never happen again...? 

Although I’d adopted the new mindset of doing my best to keep things normal, it was so hard to ignore how different things seemed. I felt like I had to be so careful about what I said, about what I alluded to, for fear of her getting uncomfortable and making the change even more stark. It was like I was walking on eggshells, which never used to be the case around her. Before, she made me feel comfortable and like she would never judge me for even a second. The air was thick with tension. I hated it.

The sun set and the stars came out. Neither of made any hints toward wanting to leave or being tired. Despite how abnormal all of this felt and how deeply sad it made me, I had this lingering fear that these hangouts would start to get more and more scarce. That I’d see her less and less. I had to make the most of it. I’m not sure what her motivations were. Maybe she felt that she had to overcompensate to make it seem like nothing was wrong. Maybe she was trying to convince herself that things were just like how they were before, although that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Eventually we got in her car and drove the familiar route back to campus. Neither of us were saying anything. Randomly, she pointed out that the weather was nice. Was that really what we’d come to? Small talk about the weather? We used to talk about our futures and our dreams, tell secrets we hadn’t ever told anyone before. I remember that for some reason, that slight comment from her about something that would seem so innocuous to anyone else almost made me cry at what we’d so abruptly lost.

The car stopped without warning and she pulled over to the side of the dark, almost empty street, catching me off guard. She turned fully in her seat to face me and I was terrified.

“We need to talk about this.” Her words were deadset but I couldn’t read her tone.

“...about what?”

“About what you told me last night.” Her cheeks were rosy. Was she embarrassed? Or did the topic just make her uncomfortable? Either way, I felt my blood run cold from how scared I was. What was she going to say? What did she want _me_ to say?

“...what about it?” I sounded just as terrified as I felt, my voice so meek and timid it was almost inaudible.

She sighed, pushing some of her hair up and off her face - something she did when she was frustrated. Was I frustrating her? I didn’t want to be such a burden, “I... I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me about this stuff.” Her motherly tone came back, something that normally would have comforted me but in this situation it only made my anxiety worse.

I shifted where I sat, unable to match her gaze, “I... don’t feel that way.” That was a lie. She saw straight through it.

Her hand moved to rest atop my knee, “Kahei, come on. For some reason this terrifies you, but it shouldn’t!” She tried to sound positive and enthusiastic, a smile lighting up her face that made my chest feel a bit less tight, “Because it shouldn’t be a big issue, whether it’s a boy or a girl. It’s just about two people falling in love, right?”

_God, if only you knew_. I thought to myself, trying to ignore the lump forming in my throat and the knot in my stomach. I wasn’t nervous because it was a girl, I was nervous because it was _her._

All I could muster was a slight shrug. She nudged my arm playfully, rolling her eyes.

“When did you find out, anyways?” She sounded so genuinely interested. Oh no. Was I going to have to lie to her? I couldn’t. She gasped, suddenly excited, “Oh! Do you like someone??”

My hands clenched into fists and my face turned beet red. She noticed and it only made her even more giddy. It was adorable and I hated myself for thinking so.

“Who? Do I know them??”

I jumped quickly at the chance she’d unknowingly given me, “No--” My voice cracked slightly so I cleared my throat, “Um-- it’s just... someone from class.”

She nodded knowingly, seeming pleased with herself, “Kahei, that’s so exciting! Is it a boy or a girl--” She stopped herself, “Well, I guess that part doesn’t matter too much, huh?” She was trying so hard to make this normal. To make this some exciting, gossipy thing, but it wasn’t. There was a palpable pain in my chest that wouldn’t go away, “You should tell them!”

“I can’t.” I responded instantly, my voice being more firm than it had been for this whole conversation, because I was so absolutely certain of what I’d said.

She pouted at me, “Aww, c’mon! Why not?”

_So many reasons._ I thought, pursing my lips as if to keep the words from leaping out.

“I’m... scared.” I whispered, finally daring to look into her eyes. That was a mistake. I was getting lost in them.

She frowned, leaning closer and tentatively clasping one of my hands, “We’re all scared to say the things that are most worth saying. But trust me, you’ve gotta go for it.” It felt like I couldn’t breathe. She didn’t understand the connotations behind what she was telling me to do, and it made me so tense, “Promise me: you’ll tell this person at _least_ before the semester ends. Okay?”

I said nothing. I couldn’t promise that, there was no way. Then she made it worse - reaching her free hand toward me with an extended pinky. Oh no. No, no no.

“Kaheiii.” She spoke up in a sing-song voice, wiggling her finger at me, “Come on. Pretty please?”

_Don’t._ My hand moved as if on its own, raising up toward hers. _Don’t make this promise._ My pinky extended. _You shouldn’t._ Haseul suddenly took the initiative before I had the chance to react, bringing her hand even closer and wrapping her pinky around mine. I returned the gesture, the motion automatic, the meaning behind the actual promise I just made not at all lost on me.

“Good!” She exclaimed, retracting her hand, “It’s a binding agreement now, you know that right?”

“...right.”

It was stupid. It wasn’t a real promise, and I knew that - nothing external was prompting me to keep it. Absolutely nothing. And a huge, over-encompassing part of me didn’t want to tell her. Why would I? Our relationship had grown strained just from telling her I had the potential to like girls in the first place. It would crumble irreparably if I told her that I liked her, right?

But then that hope came back. That stupid, pathetic, frustrating hope that wouldn’t fade no matter how much I yelled at myself for having it in the first place. The hope that telling her would awaken something just like she’d awoken something in me. The hope that she’d feel the same, that she would realize, that we could be together. I wasn’t dumb, I knew the odds of that were next to nothing, but something in me wouldn’t let it go - _couldn’t._

So I started to consider my method. Text? Call? In person? No, that last option was definitely not on the table. There was no way I would ever be able to look Haseul in the eyes and tell her I was in love with her. I would probably pass out.

So that left a text or a call. I couldn’t call either. My voice would break, and the option of hanging up would be too tempting to resist. I didn’t want to blurt out “I’m in love with you” and then end the call in a panic. That wouldn’t help anything. In fact it would probably do just the opposite.  
  


That left texting. But that felt so incredibly impersonal and not at all appropriate. Maybe I could write it down...? In a letter?

It seemed like the only real possibility. The hard part was putting my feelings and deepest emotions down into paper - translating them into words that weren’t even my first language. I’d gotten more than proficient at Korean by this point, but I still felt like it was so difficult to properly express what I wanted to say. There must have been dozens of drafts, some as short as a paragraph and others almost the length of a short story. Some were rambly and incoherent while some were so blunt and curt they seemed like a business email. A few seemed to reach a decent balance, but I felt like either revealed too much or too little. I was thinking of the letter nearly every second of every day, writing sentences I didn’t want to forget in the margins of my notebooks during class, typing random segments into my notes on my phone when they came to me while I was out. It took me days upon days of nonstop contemplating, proofreading and ripping up failed drafts. Until finally, I wrote what I thought seemed to fit.

It didn’t go on for too long, but I gave just enough explanation to make it very clear what I was trying to say. Nowhere in the letter did I actually put the three fateful words of “I love you,” I was too scared. Petrified, really. After the first rough draft was completed in pencil, I took one of my many pink pens and rewrote it as carefully as I could with a slightly trembling hand. Folding it, I wrote Haseul’s name across the side and tucked it into my pocket. Now I just had to give it to her.

While I’d written the letter, we hadn’t seen each other. Neither of us asked to. She didn’t remind me of the promise, and we only texted once or twice. Earlier on in our friendship, being separated for this long with such minimal contact would’ve been totally unheard of, but I wasn’t surprised. The stiff nature of our last interaction was pretty self-explanatory to me.

It was a half hour or so walk to her house, and I knew I probably should have asked for a ride, but I was worried that if I saw her face, I wouldn’t have the courage to do anything with this letter I’d toiled over for so long. Cradling it in my hands, I started to head over once all my classes for the day were done and the sun was starting to set.

The entire way there I was warring with myself in my head. Was this a bad idea? Why was I even doing this in the first place - because of a pinky promise? What were we, eight years old? Why did I feel so compelled to share this with her, when the chance of her reacting in a way that was even remotely positive were so incredibly slim? Why was I putting myself in a situation where so much that was so important was riding on a possibility that was paper thin? Was this stupid? Was _I_ stupid? Should I have asked someone else’s opinion first, to see what they thought?

At that last question, I stopped as I walked and pulled out my phone. Sooyoung’s contact was in there, I’d asked Jinsol for it shortly after our little... interaction. I hadn’t bothered to text her, so when I called without much thought, the number would show up as unknown.

Thankfully she answered, sounding confused.

I told her who I was and explained what I was doing: that I was halfway down Haseul’s street, staring at her house visible on the curb, holding a letter detailing my innermost feelings while my brain felt like it was going to short circuit from how confused, uncertain and upset I was simultaneously. She took in all the information without interjecting.

“You should give it to her.” She stated plainly, not even the slightest hint of hesitation in her voice.

I asked why.

“Because I can tell this is killing you. And if you don’t tell her, if you don’t get a concrete, straight up ‘no,’ you’ll never forgive yourself for not taking the chance. What if she was the one that got away? You won’t know unless you do this.”

She stayed on the phone with me as I walked up the steps to her porch and lingered at the mailbox. Nobody was home, but I half-expected someone to burst through the door and ask what I was I was doing there. I didn’t want to be caught. I’d lose all my nerve. My whole body was shaking. Sooyoung goaded me on, telling me that I should do it, that I’d regret coming all the way here and not following through. She was right, and she convinced me.

I cautiously lifted the lid and slid in my letter, practically running off down the street as if I’d just left a ticking time bomb in the mailbox. 

I waited in dreadful, unbearable anticipation. First for hours, then for days, then for weeks. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t talk to me. She avoided me, actively. She didn’t answer my texts, she never bothered to call, she even must have changed her usual routes from class to class because I didn’t bump into her on campus anymore.

I felt totally empty, like a hollow shell of my former self. It was almost the end of the semester. I was going to be on a plane back to China in mere days, and we hadn’t talked.

Part of me was angry. What happened to “this doesn’t change anything,” and “it’s not a big issue?” Apparently it _did_ change things, and it _was_ a big issue, because it had ruined everything. Part of me was frustrated at myself. Why did I listen to Sooyoung? She didn’t know enough about the situation, about Haseul. I took her advice too quickly. I didn’t think this through. I should’ve kept it to myself, this was all my fault, I was such an _idiot_. And another, much bigger part of me was so _sad_. So horribly, awfully, _devastatingly_ sad. I’d lost her. Just because of my stupid feelings. I lost the best thing in my life, the best _person_ in my life that I’d ever met. I’d lost her.

Sooyoung called me randomly one day and my stomach sank when I saw it was her. For a few fleeting moments, I thought Haseul was calling to talk to me for once. I thought she cared, that she wanted to rectify things. But of course she didn’t. For those lingering seconds, the suffocating pressure of my bleak feelings left me, but at the realization they all came crashing back down so hard I was surprised my legs didn’t give out.

I answered. She was curious about “how it went with the whole Haseul thing.” I was in public, in the middle of a store. I couldn’t break down in tears, but I felt them creeping up. I did my best to explain. When she offered me advice, I was wary of it. It had backfired in the past.

She told me that I needed to go talk to her, in person. I needed to confront her and force a conversation, or the separation would just make things worse. Our friendship would get even more strained until it was totally irreparable. If I wanted to salvage things, if I still wanted to be her friend, we needed to talk.

She was right. I knew it. I was just so scared.

She offered to accompany me on the walk there, which was very sweet, but I turned her down. I needed to do this myself for once. I needed to be brave and take my life into my own hands instead of being so passive. I did ask her for a ride, however, which she agreed to on one condition: that I go and talk to Haseul the next day.

The pressure was what I needed. Otherwise I might not have gone at all. Despite that, my stomach was in painful knots of nerves as we turned onto Haseul’s street. I fiddled endlessly with my fingers as they trembled, taking deep, calculated breaths in a failed attempt to calm myself down. Sooyoung tried to reassure me, telling me that this was going to be good, and at the very least I’d leave with less questions than I went in with. Did I want the answers to those questions, though?

I knocked on Haseul’s door so weakly it was probably inaudible. Her mother answered and hugged me. She was “glad to see me,” and it had “been too long.” My chest tightened even more, when it had already been so impossibly constricted that my ribs nearly ached. I loved Haseul’s family almost as much as I loved her. Would I lose them too, as casualties in this aftermath?

I asked if Haseul was home in the happiest, most casual tone I could manage. She was in her room upstairs. At the confirmation I felt a whole new wave of nerves wash over me. I suppose I’d been slightly expecting her to be away, so I had an excuse to postpone whatever was about to happen.

The vague creaking of Haseul’s stairs wasn’t a comforting sound anymore. Now it just echoed in the inside of my head and gave me chills. I passed by Yeojin’s bright, colorful room, knowing that she wasn’t home, since I would’ve long since been ambushed and tackled into a hug had she been. Haseul’s door was open. It was the furthest room down the hall.

I stopped at her doorway’s edge, leaning against the wall as I tried to collect myself. My composure was already thinning and I had yet to even lay eyes on her. I could hear the rustling of papers coming from inside, and I could vaguely smell her perfume. I missed that. I missed her so much.

Taking one final breath, I forced myself to take a step inside. There she was, leaning over her bed that had a bunch of school papers splayed out on it. Her room was dirtier than I’d ever seen it, scattered piles of clutter here and there on the floor. Normally it was spotless. Her eyes flitted upward, probably having expected someone else, anyone else besides me really, and she stopped still. She’d been writing something down but froze mid-motion, her grip on her pencil loosening so that it fell over onto the paper.

Her brow furrowed in mild confusion, “Hey...” I watched as she stood bolt upright, whatever work she had been doing totally forgotten. I couldn’t read her tone. I was too starstruck from seeing her again. It’d been so long, I’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was or how overwhelmed I became just from the sound of her voice. My eyes were already starting to sting.

“Hi...” I muttered out quietly, still fiddling with my hands as they shook. I didn’t even try to hide it.

“Um...” Her eyes flitted to a clock hanging on the wall next to me, “You could’ve texted, I was just heading out...” Now that she mentioned it, she was fully dressed and even had shoes on. She idly reached to some of the papers on the bed and started to slip them into a backpack out of my view on the floor.

I’d missed my chance. This was an inconvenience to her now, I should go.

“I-It’s okay, I can leave—“ I already took a step back to the door, but her voice in a painfully familiar soothing tone stopped me in my tracks.

"--no, Kahei, no.” She stopped her packing up and turned to better face me. Although it did sound like she was trying to calm me down, there was an underlying sting to her words that made it almost seem like she was annoyed. I may have been projecting though, assuming the worst as some sort of twisted coping mechanism, “Why’d you come over?"

_I wanted to see you. I needed to see you. We have to talk. I love you so much._ All of those responses formed in my head, complete with a strong unwavering voice and a clear sense of resolve, but none of them actually came out. She seemed frustrated. Like she had little patience. Did she really have to go somewhere? I didn’t want to make her late. As if in an instant, all of the courage and certainty I’d had drained out of me. It hadn’t been much to begin with, but it was still a loss.

Sooyoung would be disappointed but I didn’t care, I couldn’t do this.

"Um-- I-- think I left a textbook here from a while ago, a-and I need to give it back to my professor...” Her eyes narrowed slightly. Did she not believe me? “I’ll um, stop bothering you once I have it." God did it hurt saying that out loud - finally admitting how I felt more like a nuisance than a person.

Her response was slow spoken, as if to ensure I didn’t mishear it, “You're not bothering me.”

She sounded so sincere and genuine. Like she used to. The tears that had been building up inside me just seemed to get worse, and I sniffled slightly. I was losing it and I didn’t want to break down in front of her. She shouldn’t see how upset this made me.

I needed to get out of there, “Okay, um, can I just have the book please?” My voice was strained and weak. I couldn’t hide that.

She frowned, but nodded and started to putter about her side of the room. It was true, I had left a book there a while back, "Yeah, sure, uh, lemme just look for it quick. My room’s kinda a mess right now, in case you hadn’t noticed." Her mild attempt at humor fell totally flat.

Awkwardly hovering, my eyes started to scan the room at the comment. Most of the piles on the floor were made up of clothes and school things, but the surfaces in her room were cluttered too: her dresser, nightstands and desk had numerous thing scattered atop them. The further I examined it, the odder it seemed. Haseul hated when she couldn’t find something fast, and she liked when her room was tidy. “Cluttered room, cluttered mind,” she liked to say. Maybe her mind was cluttered and it spread to have a visible effect.

Suddenly my wandering gaze caught something. A few steps away from me, visible on the corner of the dresser, was my letter. It was still folded up, but it’s edges were worn out and one of the corners was slightly bent, as if it has been folded and unfolded dozens of times.

I’d never felt such a resentment for an inanimate piece of paper before in my life. That was what had ruined everything between Haseul and I. An unbelievably strong compulsion to snatch it, tear it, destroy it emerged in me and it was startling but I didn’t care.

I moved and gently picked it up with a trembling hand, just as Haseul popped up from the other side of her bed after having been rooting around beneath it.

“There, this is it right—?“ Her words cut off when her eyes moved back to me. She looked at the letter that I now held, her mouth still slightly dropped open. The air grew heavy and dense.

My hand shook harder, “Can I have this?”

She looked taken aback, raising a slow eyebrow at me, “You want it back...?”

My throat was tight from the tears I was struggling so hard to swallow down, "Yes, I-I want to rip it up and burn it." My voice shook right along with my fingers, but from anger this time. Anger at myself - at the situation I’d put myself into. My nails must’ve been leaving marks on the paper but I couldn’t have cared less, I wanted to do worse.

"What?” My comment instantly caught her full attention, as did my peculiar tone she’d likely never heard before. Setting down my newly discovered textbook on her bed, she took a few cautious steps toward me, “Why?"

I sniffled again, reaching to rub at one of my eyes in an effort to prevent tears, though it only seemed to encourage them, "Because I never should’ve written any of it, I never should’ve given it to you," My voice was raising against my will, my emotions running so dangerously high, my heart beating impossibly fast.

She took another step closer, her brow crinkling in what I recognized as worry, "It's alright, I--" She tried to raise her voice to match my volume and it broke slightly.

I was practically shouting now, panicking, my grip on the letter almost crumpling it, "No it's _not_ 'alright' since we barely even talk anymore!" My vision blurred from hot, burning tears.

Something snapped visibly behind her eyes, which grew glossy in what seemed like an instant, _"I just want to be friends!”_

Something inside me felt like it died. Maybe it was my heart. My face fell and I tried to fight the reaction, but it was so hard. Sooyoung has been right. I’d gotten answers. But they weren’t at all the ones I’d wanted. Although I’d slightly expected this, actually hearing it was a different story. I never could’ve prepared for it.

Despite how much it hurt, the rational part of me knew that I couldn’t deal with this separation for another second. I would do anything just to have her treat me as a friend again instead of like a stranger, even lie.

"Me too." My chest was simply aching. I’d never thought that a broken heart would really cause physical pain. I thought that was an exaggeration. Now I knew for sure that it wasn’t.

She seemed so confused and scared, in incredible distress, and my self hatred only grew knowing that it was my fault she was so distraught, "But, the letter--"

I cut her off, knowing I would lose it if she actually mentioned anything I’d written, "No, just, forget all of that, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters." I released my death grip on the letter and it fell back onto the dresser, a slight indentation from where I’d clasped it visible on the paper. My voice trembled and quivered as did my lower lip, the tears in my eyes finally streaming down my cheeks and dripping off my jaw. She stared at them but didn't move any closer.

Wiping at the corner of her eye before I could even see any tears manifesting there, she shook her head back and forth, “I just... I got so scared from what it said because I didn’t want to lose you. You're so important to me.”

“Really?” That barely even seemed true. Why had she ignored me, if that really was the case? Why hadn’t she tried to talk to me about it, ask me about it? Why did she just let me wallow in self hatred and regret without any sort of answers?

My response and genuine curiosity had a visible impact on her, and she took a step closer to put further emphasis on her soft and shaky whispered words, " _Yes_ , of _course_ you are." The concept that I doubted the sentiment seemed baffling and upsetting to her. I could see her coming further apart.

“Then why did you avoid me...?” It was clear just how much turmoil I was enduring just from my voice. It would have been impossible not to tell.

She sniffled, blinking rapidly and looking up for a second in an effort to dismiss her tears _,_ “I... was confused, and just needed to think about things by myself. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” That apology was undeniably genuine and it almost made me feel a bit better. That wasn’t what caught my attention about what she’d said, though.

Confused? Confused about what? Those same hopes resurfaced right after they’d been so brutally dashed. Confused about **_what_**. I repeated the question over and over again in my head as if that on its own would give me answer.

I didn’t want to push her. This whole situation seemed like the slightest step out of line would ruin everything all over again and set us back to square one.

_“_ I-I thought you hated me.” My voice broke again, cut off by a sob that slammed into me like a brick wall. I covering my mouth as if I could somehow stop them, but I knew that these tears weren’t even close to being over with.

She was stunned into silence for what must have been half a minute, looking so pained that it made me feel even worse somehow, “...what?” Tears finally crept from her eyes and I realized I’d never seen her cry before. I hated it. I hated that I was the cause of all this hurt, “Kahei, I could never hate you for even a _second_.” She reached up and did her best to wipe her own tears away with her sleeves. It wasn’t really working.

"So...” I took a much needed deep breath, “Am I still your friend?"

She didn’t hesitate in the slightest, a sad smile breaking across her face, " _Yes,_ of _course.”_ She finally dared to get closer and she hugged me so tightly it hurt. I latched onto her with a white-knuckled grip, letting myself cry. Her body was shaking, “God, of _course_.” I felt my legs giving out from how unstable and overwhelmed I was, and I nearly collapsed, falling into her arms. She lowered the two of us to the floor and started to rock us back and forth, still keeping back her own tears, “I’ll always be your friend... always, I _promise_.”

Friends. Just friends. I knew it was better than nothing, and I knew that my hopes had been unwarranted and misguided from the start, but that didn’t make this hurt any less. It didn’t fill the hole that I now could tangibly feel in my chest, it didn’t soothe the pain that my heart was undergoing, it didn’t stop my tears or steady my uneven breaths. It just reassured me that Haseul would still be in my life, at least to some extent, in the future. Which was bittersweet.

Sooyoung tried to comfort me. She told me that it was Haseul’s loss, that I should move onto someone new. I don’t think she understood the depth of my affection. Maybe she’d never experienced something like that before. Flippantly one day, I asked her if she’d ever been in love. She got quiet as we walked side by side to a class, slowed her pace, and said simply, “Yeah. Wouldn’t recommend it,” before speeding up and leaving me in the dust.

Haseul was my friend. But we were never as close as we had been during my second year. Being around her caused me such intense heartache but that wasn’t her fault. For a long time I would endure it and spend countless hours at her side, going on day trips with her, studying for exams, eating out, sleeping over. Sometimes the pain in my chest would be so bad that I’d nearly start to cry. That was usually when I had to cut it short and head back to my dorm, so I could lay in my bed and curl up in a ball, muffling my tears with my hands.

Then she got her boyfriend.

It was a guy who I’d seen around campus before. His name was Yoonoh, and he was handsome and nice. He’d helped me bring my things up to my room when I moved back in for my new classes without me even asking. That was actually when he and Haseul first met.

  
I didn’t want to hate him. I didn’t want to turn green with envy when I saw them hold hands, or when he’d wrap his arms around her waist from behind, or pick her up and spin her around when they hugged. I didn’t want to my chest to constrict every time I heard his name and I didn’t want to cry whenever Haseul cancelled a plan with me to go on a date with him. At first she tried to hangout with both of us at the same time. But she noticed. She wasn’t dumb. She’d see how my face would fall if he’d kiss her cheek. She’d see how quickly I looked away whenever he so much as touched her. Sometimes for my sake she’d shrug off his arm from her shoulders or gently push him out of their embrace after a quick second or two. I appreciated it, but started to feel like more of a nuisance than a wanted tagalong.

She distanced herself from me, and I from her. It was so gradual I’m sure she almost wasn’t sure of what she was doing. We saw each other less and less. Our sleepovers became scarce. We stopped coordinating which classes we would have when new semesters started. We didn’t study together anymore. When we did run into one another, we would smile and be polite and hug, but there was sadness there. For the both of us.

You might be wondering, if you were both so sad, why not reach out? Why not rekindle things? What was preventing you from growing close again besides yourselves? And I don’t have an answer. I feel as if part of it was due to poor communication on both sides. I wasn’t sure what she thought of me. I wasn’t sure if she assumed my feelings for her had gone away, I wasn’t sure if she felt some sort of pressure to be my friend as some twisted obligation so as not to hurt me, I wasn’t sure if she even noticed the distance or if she was secretly grateful for it. As for me, my feelings lingered. Even when she was practically absent from my life, I would think of her from the smallest of triggers. The memories and reminders were so consistent it was almost as if she hadn’t left at all - as if she was there with me.

My next years of college dragged on and left me feeling hollow. My friends were Jinsol and Sooyoung, the latter being the only one who I dared to speak to of my affections for Haseul. They both had long-term girlfriends who they couldn’t seem any happier with. Sometimes it was hard to be around them too, because I was so intensely jealous.

Sooyoung, although a very good friend who I wouldn’t trade for anything, sometimes seemed impatient. It came from a place of pity. She wanted the best for me, and “pining after some straight” wasn’t going to do me any good. She set me up on dates with boys and girls who she knew, but nothing ever clicked. I’d always be disconnected, barely there, and things would peeter out. Even after everything, my heart would always belong to Haseul, whether she wanted to have it or not.

I graduated and I didn’t tell her the date of the ceremony. Jinsol and Sooyoung both attended - being a year younger than me. They brought me flowers and gifts and saw me off at the airport when I flew home. I was coming back to the city the next year for more school, but I would be in a different university a few hours away.

Haseul texted me and said congratulations with a few exclamation points. I told her thank you, and that was that.

The next year, Jinsol invited me during a long weekend to a sort of reunion get together. I agreed, having missed she and Sooyoung during the month or so I’d already spent at my new school. Thankfully I wasn’t totally alone there - I’d already made friends, though I never forgot those who were there for me when I felt so stranded and alone. Haseul included. When Jinsol gave me the address, however, my blood ran cold.

It was Haseul’s house.

I’d already said yes. I didn’t want to cancel. A bitterness arose in me: why _should_ I have to cancel? Why should she prevent me from seeing my friends? I didn’t want her to have this power over me anymore - it wasn’t fair. I probably never crossed her mind for even a second anymore. I hadn’t seen her in over a year. That was so surreal. I thought back to the days where even after a few hours, we’d check in on each other. My heart warmed for just a few seconds before I seemed to remember that that time had long past. Things were different now, and I needed to accept that.

Even with that mindset, it was incredibly jarring to see Haseul’s house again. It was so strange that a place that used to make me feel so welcome, comforted, safe and at home, could give me such intense anxiety to simply stand on its porch. I could hear excited chatter from inside. Jinsol had told me that there would be a bunch of other girls there too who I didn’t know too well. I’d had enough run-ins with Jinsol’s other friends to know their names, but besides that not much else besides they were pretty loud. Maybe their presence would be overpowering enough for Haseul to not notice me.

Jinsol opened the door when I knocked and pulled me inside with a tight, warm hug. I smiled, her happiness contagious, and was promptly ambushed by Sooyoung wrapping her arms around my waist from behind. I leaned into the embrace, realizing only then that it had been nearly a month since I had hugged anyone. They both took a long time to let me go, so enthusiastic they were nearly bursting. Just as they’d released me, a new pair of arms replaced theirs, and it took a few seconds to process that the hugger was Yeojin. My heart skipped a beat, and I hugged her so tight it probably hurt. I’d missed her. She started babbling again, the same way she used to years before, rambling about nothing and telling me how much she’d missed me, how long it had been, how tall she’d gotten and how I’d stayed the same size. I felt myself tearing up for some reason, the wave of nostalgia totally unanticipated and intense.

The three of them brought me into Haseul’s large living room, where all of the girls seemed to be. They formed a sort of circle, though some were on couches and some sat on the floor. Jinsol and Sooyoung returned to their spaces next to their respective girlfriends, already being affectionate. There were two other couples there as well, both of them consisting only of girls. There were only three girls not entangled with a significant other: Yeojin, Yerim, and...

Haseul sat on an ottoman, her legs daintily crossed and her entrancing eyes staring straight at me. She had her glasses on - which I had always thought made her look the best, and she wore a very slight gloss on her lips that made them sparkle when the light hit her in the right way. My heart started beating fast. Those old butterflies came back - butterflies I’d almost forgotten the sensation of because it had been so long. She was so _gorgeous_. Breathtaking, literally. My breath subtly hitched as soon as I spotted her. Our gazes had met, and the contact was held. The slight smile that had been on her face from something another girl said slowly faded the longer we looked at each other. I clenched my fists behind my back. They’d already started trembling.

Yeojin, being completely oblivious to the subtle, nuanced things that were happening, grabbed my hand and tugged me to the floor to sit at her side. I staggered from the sudden motion and almost fell. I hugged my knees against myself and partially hid my face behind them, whatever positive emotions that I’d felt upon entering the house having been drained straight out of me and replaced with that lingering sense of inadequacy and self-hatred Haseul unknowingly gave me. Every time I saw her I was reminded of what I lost, what I’d screwed up. Heat was rising to my cheeks and I was glad they were partially shielded from view.

Jinsol explained to me that the group had been in the middle of doing some silly games proposed by Yerim. I’d encounter Yerim a few times and all that I knew was she was probably the most optimistic person I’d ever met in my life - yes, even surpassing Yeojin. The two were best friends, to top it all off. Sometimes when Haseul and I would be hanging out, those two would as well, and there was nearly constantly shrieking and laughing coming from the other side of the house. We used to roll our eyes at it, sometimes impersonating how shrill they would giggle. I didn’t like thinking about that. It hurt my chest.

They were playing “never have I ever,” a game which I was only moderately familiar with. After a quick explanation of the rules, I raised up ten fingers with mild reluctance and watched as everyone else in the circle did the same.

The statements were pretty basic, nothing groundbreaking. Some were broad and potentially applicable to anyone there - “never have I ever failed a test,” “never have I ever left the country,” things like that, though some were clearly pointed attacks at certain people - “never have I ever left a pot of boiling water on the stove and almost burned the house down” (this one was targeting a girl named Chaewon, who seemed very unappreciative of the remark), “never have I ever fallen into a pond because I was trying to catch frogs” (this one was said by Haseul and targeted Yeojin. I remember because I’d been there, and laughed right along with Haseul while we retrieved her soaking wet little sister from the pond water.)

One in particular caused quite a hub-ub, and it was said by Yeojin herself. I think she did so because she knew that it would impact a majority of the group and get them all to put down a finger, “Never have I ever had a crush on a _girl_.” She said it almost like it was gross, or “icky” - one of her favorite made up adjectives.

My eyes scanned the group slowly. A lot of fingers were put down, including one from me. I wasn’t too surprised by anybody, except one.

Haseul.  
  


Jinsol’s girlfriend Jungeun gasped loudly, “Whoa whoa, wait a minute, some people just put down fingers who I did _not_ know would put down fingers.” She made a sweeping gesture indicating that the game was officially paused, and there were few complaints.

Hyejoo, a girl I’d only met twice, shared Jungeun’s sentiment, “Yeah, Yerim, what the hell?? Who??”

My gaze flitted to Yerim, whose face had grown red. She smiled nervously, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “It... was a while ago. It’s whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore--”

Her excuses were cut off sharply by Hyunjin, Heejin's girlfriend, “-- _No._ You better tell us who it was right now or I’m gonna come over there and slap you.” She made motions as if she was going to stand, but Heejin held her in place by grasping her arm.

Yerim seemed adamant, shaking her head back and forth and getting ready to bolt if need be, “No, you can’t make me. Really guys I don’t feel like talking about it.” Her voice got distant and something behind her eyes changed. My heart went out to the previously cheery girl, startled at just how fast all of her positivity left her at the mentioning of this topic. It must’ve been a pretty bad crush, and it must’ve also been unrequited. She had no idea how deeply I could relate to her at that moment.

The seriousness of her tone was noted and nobody tried to press the issue further out of polite respect, but instead directed their questions to someone else.

“Haseul!! You aren’t off the hook either!” Jinsol exclaimed, leaning slightly forward out of her seat and pointing an accusatory finger at Haseul, who’d already jumped slightly at how abruptly Jinsol blurted out her name.

The room went quiet for a second or two - probably the first time that had happened the entire night. Everyone was waiting, expecting an answer. My heart was in my throat and my eyes were wide, fixed so intensely on Haseul that I was sure she must have felt it. Her cheeks warmed visibly from the sudden attention.

“Um--” She giggled nervously and my chest tightened, angry with myself for the attraction that was _still there_ after all this time, “What? I’m literally surrounded by lesbians, how could it not have crossed my mind at least once? You’re all bad influences on me.” She tried to make a joke of it, and mostly everyone seemed to accept her explanation. But her eyes flitted to me. Just for a second. My breath hitched again, and I could see her body tense up. She quickly looked away as her blush deepened.

What was that?

Hyunjin spoke up rather bluntly, “Is that why you dumped Yoonoh?”

My ears pricked up. I didn’t know that. Why would I have? It wasn’t like we were communicating anymore. But... what had happened? Was it a nasty breakup? Was she upset about it? An age-old instinctive concern arose in me and I wanted to talk to her so badly, to comfort her and see if she was okay. But we couldn’t. We weren’t friends like that anymore.

A pause ensued where Haseul didn’t say a word. I continued to stare at her intensely, and once that question had been asked, she actually matched my gaze. The color to her cheeks still lingered, and she was trying to convey something to me. She was. But I couldn’t tell. More than anything I wished I could, but I didn’t understand.

“You broke up with him?” I spoke directly for what must have been the second or third time since I’d entered the house. Everyone turned to look at me for a second, but I didn’t care, or even slightly glance away from Haseul.

She took an audible breath, “...yeah.” I couldn’t read her tone either. Had I really lost touch with her so much that I couldn’t understand her anymore? When we’d been close I’d been able to catch the most subtle of hidden messages, tune into the most vague gestures and body language. Now it was all foreign to me.

Sooyoung piped up, as if having read my mind and asked the next question on my behalf, “How come?”

Heejin agreed, “Yeah, you never told us why.”

Haseul looked increasingly uncomfortable, and finally broke our long-lasting eye contact. She pursed her lips and shook her head back and forth, sneering ever so slightly at the memories. Had it been that bad? “It... wasn’t working out.”

A chorus of annoyed groans from multiple different girls filled the room as Haseul was relentlessly pestered for more information which she refused to give. Eventually the topic was dropped and the game continued, though Haseul didn’t say much for the rest of its duration. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

When people got bored of this game, they moved absentmindedly to another. I excused myself and said quietly to Yeojin that I had to go to the bathroom. It was upstairs. Nobody gave me a second glance as I stood and left the room, creeping up the staircase. I didn’t really have to go, I just needed a breather, so I let myself wander. The pictures on the walls of the upstairs hallway were different. They’d been updated. I traced along them gently with my fingertips, reminiscing. There had once been one of Haseul and I there. It was gone, replaced by a family photo. I guess her family had removed me from their life just as much as Haseul had.

I walked past Yeojin’s room. The door was open and it was dark besides the very faint orange night light she had plugged in next to her bed. I’d bought her that for her birthday. She used to always have to leave the door to the hallway open at night because she was scared of the dark, which she’d told me in confidence. She’d kept it. I couldn’t help but smile.

Haseul’s room was next. Similarly to the day I’d confronted her about the letter, I felt myself pause before the doorframe. I knew the impact this room would have on me, how instantly I would notice even the slightest change because of how intimately I knew every inch of it. How many hours had I spent in there? How many secrets and deep conversations had been held until the early hours of the morning within the confines of these walls? How many times had she played with my hair while my head was in her lap, how many times had we fallen asleep in the same bed when I slept over? Too many to count.

Taking a deep breath, I walked in.

So much was different. Her bed had been moved to the corner instead of being centered on the far wall. Her fluffy rug was gone, replaced by a more mature and tame one with a muted pattern. She’d taken down her posters and replaced them with postcards, calendars and color-coded whiteboards. A string of pictures hung above her desk. They were of she and most of those girls downstairs. None were of me. We’d taken so many together, what had happened to them? Did she throw them away? My chest felt hollow and I could feel my eyes beginning to burn with tears, but they were partially from happiness. A subtle, nostalgia-driven happiness, but happiness nonetheless. Some of the times I’d spent in this room were the happiest of my life, and despite the changes, it still felt familiar.

It was tidy, like she always used to keep it. Not a single thing seemed out of place, everything was organized to perfection. Her bedspread didn’t have any visible creases and her various pillows were arranged in perfect symmetry. The books on her desk were all lined up so their spines were level. The various perfumes and makeup on her dresser were arranged in order of height and product type, and...

...what...?

It couldn’t be.

There was no way.

I walked closer, thinking my eyes must have been playing tricks on me, having gotten caught up in the nostalgia.

But they weren’t. It was there.

Poking out slightly from behind a small jewelry box was a piece of paper. A piece of notebook paper. I pulled it more into view with a trembling hand and recoiled as if I’d been electrically shocked.

It was the letter.

She had the letter.

It was worn out. As if it had been read countless times. The indents from when I had clutched it with such desperation were still visible, having left bends. One of the corners was slightly ripped off, clinging on by a mere thread. The ink with which I’d written her name was slightly smudged, as if some sort of water had dripped upon it and then a finger brushed against the letters unintentionally.

A floorboard in the hallway creaked.

My eyes shot toward it and I saw Haseul. Her gaze flitted between me, and the letter, jaw slightly dropped, brow upturned in what I read as surprise.

I picked it up and held it between trembling fingers. I needed answers. I was sick of this, sick of the weirdness, the confusion, the avoidance, the questions, sick of _everything_.

“Why did you keep this?” My voice was firm for only a second before crumbling into nothing more than a meek whisper.

She didn’t say a word. Just stood there in the doorway, her body stiff as a statue, staring at me in dismay. Her cheeks lit with a blush for the second time. Was she embarrassed? Why? Why wouldn’t she just tell me? Talk to me, like she used to?

My heart was aching yet again - that same intense pang of hurt shot through me and made my chest constrict. Tears welled up in my eyes from how many emotions suddenly consumed my whole body, but mainly I was angry. I just wanted to _know_. I wanted her to _tell me_.

“Why did you keep this?” I asked again, through clenched teeth, doing my best to glare though I could barely muster the expression.

She didn’t say a word. For a second I thought I saw her vaguely shake her head back and forth. Her hand that had previously been resting on the doorway clenched into a white-knuckled fist. This was infuriating. My blood was boiling.

I took a step closer, my rage mixing with the _sadness_ that had been festering within me, unaddressed for _years_. It manifested in a painful, sharp sob that hit me hard, almost making me double over from its impact, though I forced myself to stand straight. I took a step closer, _“Why did you keep this?”_

She said nothing.

I moved to grip it with my other hand and started to tear it in half, but as soon as she heard the first sound of the paper giving way, she surged forward and snatched it from me in one frantic motion, cradling it against her chest. I stared at her, dumbstruck.

Another sob hit me and it hurt even more, “Why...?” My anger had dissolved into confusion. All I wanted was an answer. I just wanted her to answer. The air was so dense and thick with tension that I was surprised it didn’t make us sink into the floor.

Her lips moved ever so slightly, as if she was going to speak, and I held my breath in preparation, but then she shut her mouth altogether. I’d had enough of all of this. I was done.

I pushed past her, trying to get into the hallway.

But she held me back by my arm and pulled me toward her before I could get away. My heart skipped a beat. We were almost flush against one another, and she didn’t seem to have intended that, because I heard her breath hitch. I didn’t move. Neither did she. One of her hands slowly reached up and wiped away some of the tears that still streamed down my cheeks. The contact stunned me so much that I nearly stopped crying. Something different was behind her eyes. Something I’d never seen.

She broke the remaining space between us and kissed me.

I froze, eyes wide, unable to think or function or process this. What was going on? Was I dreaming?

I shoved forward with my hand and detached her from me, both of us out of breath even from that quick peck.

“What are you doing...?” I whispered out desperately, my heart beating so fast I could hear it in my ears. She’d barely parted from me when I pushed her away, and I could feel her breath against my skin. My head was swimming.

She shook her head back and forth, “I don’t know.”

Her hands moved, her fingers balling up fistfulls of my shirt and pulling me closer - against her again. Her lips met mine a second time, though it was more deliberate. Firmer. Every single nerve in my body started to tingle with a comforting numbness I’d never experienced. All the sadness, the anger, the pain, it was gone. Like it had never even been there. I dared to move my own hands, slinking them around her waist and bringing her impossibly closer, my nails digging slightly against the fabric of her skirt from the sudden urges I had for there to be not even a centimeter of space between us. She whimpered ever so slightly from the gesture, and she pushed a bit forward, my back now pressing against the side of the doorway. My legs were weak. Her hands that still clung to my shirt started to shake, and my grip on her tightened as if that would help to steady her.

A voice called out from down the hall, “Kahei?? Are you up here? Where’s Haseul?” It was Sooyoung. Footsteps were heading steadily down the hall toward us, but it sounded muffled, almost as if I was underwater.

We knew we had to break away, but neither of us did for a few precarious seconds. I tried to slow the kiss, to lighten it and pull back, but she only became more desperate and persistent. Her hands trailed up, brushing along the sides of my neck and briefly cupping my jaw. I released my grip on her, trying to wordlessly show that we should stop - someone was coming. It seemed like she didn’t even care.

Finally, just as Sooyoung must have been two steps from the doorway, Haseul pulled back. She barely broke the distance, however, and she stared at me intensely. Her eyes were dark, entrancing, and the glint to them almost drew me straight against her automatically. My gaze flitted down to her lips as I tried to catch my breath.

Sooyoung’s head poked curiously around the corner, and I could tell she knew something had gone on. Naturally good at being discreet, she toned back any sort of reaction she may have had and simply told us that Yeojin was bugging Haseul to make cookies. Haseul nodded, taking an extra step away from me and heading into the hall. The three of us went back downstairs. Sooyoung returned to the living room while I made the spontaneous choice to follow Haseul into the kitchen.

She’d been rooting through the fridge clumsily, fumbling and bumping into things, seeming greatly rattled from what had happened upstairs. The sentiment was more than mutual. I spoke up to get her attention and she jumped, seeming terrified.

“... do you need any help...?” I asked her slowly, stepping to be at her side by the counter.

She pulled a batch of premade cookie dough from the fridge and set it down nearby, turning to face me, “Um... no, it’s pretty easy...” She was whispering for some reason, as if worried someone would overhear us from two rooms over.

Taking a deep breath, she walked toward me and reached for something over my shoulder. When she got so close, it took her a second or two for her to realize, and then she froze. My fists clenched.

“I’m...” The word left her on her next exhale. She stared at me in the same way she had upstairs, though her piercing gaze drifted from my eyes to my lips. One of my hands moved, as if against my will, and rested gently against her forearm. Her eyes closed at the touch and she leaned slightly closer, brow furrowing a bit. It seemed like she was trying to restrain herself from me, and like it took conscious effort.

I kissed her a second time, being drawn in effortlessly, finding her utterly irresistible. She made a quiet noise in the back of her throat, the arm that I’d been gripping shifting to wrap slightly around my torso. I took more time to process it, to analyze the feelings, the softness to her lips, the smoothness of her skin. I moved my hand to her hair, entangling my fingers in the strands. In a matter of seconds, she’d deepened the kiss, scraping my lower lip with her teeth slightly from how rough she had suddenly become. There was such a blatant yearning behind all of her movements. I could practically feel her heartbeat, she was so close and this was so suddenly intense. There was so much I was trying to convey, so much I felt like I needed to tell her but still was so scared to. The passion behind what she was doing was unmistakable, but I was still worried. Did she really not know what she was doing? Was she not thinking it through? Was it something flippant, a heat of the moment thing that she wasn’t considering the consequences of implications of? I prayed it wasn’t. I prayed to anything and everything that may have been listening.

She drew back, pursing her lips and resting her forehead against mine, “I think... you should stay the night.” She whispered to me airily.

I stared deeply at her, feeling a blush rising to my cheeks, “...is anyone else?”

She shook her head, “No... but, we have a lot to talk about.” That was quite the understatement. We had years’ worth of things to talk about. I nodded in agreement, and she took a slow step back, “You should probably go sit with the others, or I’ll never make these cookies.” She told me with a small smile. 

The rest of the night went off without a hitch. I mainly caught up with Sooyoung and Jinsol about how my new university had been and how their final year at school was so far. We reminisced about our time together, dug up long forgotten inside jokes, gossipped about old classmates and just had a nice time. A weight that I’d previously gotten so used to having atop my chest had lifted, and it was the biggest relief I’d ever experienced in my life. My whole body felt lighter, like I was walking on air.

People gradually left one by one, the crowd thinning and the buzz of conversation dying down. Haseul eventually returned to the room with cookies, and instead of sitting as far from me as she could and avoiding eye contact, she sat at my side and wrapped an arm around my waist. The way she was acting, the way that she was treating me, it felt like how things had been back in the beginning, three years earlier. Before I’d told her about my orientation, before I’d confessed my feelings in that letter, before things became stilted and we distanced ourselves. It was the happiest I’d felt in years. I couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot.

Yerim was the last one to go, having been caught up in a bubbly back and forth with Yeojin. After that, we were essentially alone. Haseul sent Yeojin to bed with minor difficulty while I waited patiently in Haseul’s room, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Eventually she came in and gently shut the door. Taking note of where I was sitting, she moved to sit at her desk chair despite there being evident space at my side. I knew it was because we needed to talk, and things seemed to get... complicated if we got too close.

She reached into the pocket of her jacket and tugged the letter from it, still holding it in her hands as if it were made of a mixture of fragile glass and gold. There was a slight rip in the top now, where I’d started to tear it, and she rubbed the tip of her thumb against it with a frown. I said nothing and let the silence linger. However this conversation went was entirely up to her, and I made that clear by turning to face her and resting my head on my hand.

She stared at the letter for a long time, a bitter smile on her face. It was then that I noticed how glossy her eyes were getting and how her lip had started to quiver, “I kept it... because...” Her whisper was so quiet I struggled to hear it, but I didn’t push her to be louder. I didn’t interrupt. I could tell how hard it was to say these words. I could tell that they had been left unspoken for literal years. She had my utmost attention, “Because I... god, I thought about our... fight, every single day after it happened.”

Our fight. I wasn’t sure if that was what I’d call it, but I didn’t correct her. It seemed like she wasn’t too happy with how she’d put it either, but didn’t have the patience or motivation to take it back, “How it went... what I said... what you said, and how I acted after... it...” She cleared her throat slightly, trying her hardest to maintain her composure. When she finally looked up from the letter and toward me, she smiled, and I smiled ever so slightly back at her, “I read this letter... constantly.” After that confession, she inhaled sharply, “I could probably recite it to you, word for word.”

I chuckled slightly, blushing at the thought. She laughed lightly too but it was hollow.

She set the letter down carefully on her desk and wheeled her desk chair closer to me. There was another long pause. She blinked quickly, staring up at the ceiling. Whatever she planned on saying was apparently going to take a lot out of her. Her palm ran briefly down her face, and she dared to match my gaze for a second time, tears visibly clinging to her eyelashes.

She sniffled, “I was stupid.” Her voice broke, “I was _so_ stupid, and I gave up on something that would have been... so good, so nice and that... I wanted so bad, all because I was scared.” The tears became too hard to keep back and I watched in dismay as they started to fall, “I wasn’t brave like you, Kahei, I couldn’t accept myself.” My heart wrenched painfully and I scooted to the edge of the bed, reaching forward and resting my hand on her knee. Instantly she placed her fingers atop mine, taking a shaky breath, “I ignored it and pretended it wasn’t there, and I distanced myself from you, and I’ve _never_ regretted _anything_ more than that in my whole life, please believe me.” I nodded, unsure of what to say, “You don’t have to forgive me - I don’t expect you to, but _please_ believe that more than anything I wish I could take it back. I wish that...” Her voice got distant, like she was getting lost in memories she didn’t even really have, “I wish that when you wrote me that letter that I drove to your dorm and barged into your room and kissed you as hard as I could, but I didn’t, and wanting to scared me so bad that I couldn’t bear to even look at you anymore...”

I felt my eyes beginning to sting too. I had never heard her speak like this, where her voice was nearly raspy from the extent of raw emotion leaving her all at once without a filter, without considering it - just letting it all out. Her grip on my hand tightened possessively.

What she planned to say next seemed to be the hardest, as it was prompted by a small, muffled sob that made my heart ache, “These last two years have been some of the worst of my life because you weren’t in them. It felt like... something was missing, all because I was too much of a coward to face my feelings. I’m _so_ sorry if that hurt you. I never, _ever_ wanted to hurt you.”

I extended my arms and she practically threw herself into them, letting herself bawl into my shoulder as I stroked her hair and whispered reassurances endlessly into her ear. I told her that it hurt, but I got through it, and now I didn’t have to hurt anymore. I told her that I missed her every second of every day, and that it was like there was a hole in my life that couldn’t be filled by anything else except her smiling face. I told her that we’d both made mistakes, that we both had regrets, but those were in the past. And right as her breaths were starting to even out, as her shoulders stopped shaking and her iron grip on me loosened, I told her that I loved her. That I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone, and ever would love anyone. That I’d loved her for a long time, and I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

She kissed my forehead, then my lips, pulling away for a single moment to whisper sweetly, “I love you too.”

After that day, we never separated again. We were never distant from one another. We didn’t keep any more secrets. It was just she and I, together.


End file.
